A former registered representative was fined and suspended for three months by Finra for allegedly making more than $800,000 in unsuitable sales of risky GPB private placements to senior customers.

The alternative investments that North Carolina-based Christopher J. Shaw sold in embattled GPB Capital Holdings’ private placements “were excessively high-risk and concentrated to multiple elderly clients,” Finra said in a settlement with the former broker filed Oct. 23. 

GPB Capital, its private placements and the reps who sold the product have been the subject of numerous enforcement actions. GPB’s president and CEO was found guilty of criminal fraud charged two months ago in connection with the yearslong scheme, which prosecutors said resulted in more than $1.8 billion in sales of the high-risk alternative investments.

Without admitting to or denying Finra's findings, Shaw consented to the suspension, a $5,000 civil money penalty and an order to pay restitution of $16,357.60 to one affected client, according to the securities industry self-regulatory organization.

Shaw sold and recommended the firm’s limited partnerships to customers, “none of whom were accredited investors, for whom those investments were unsuitable in light of their investment profiles, including their annual incomes and net worths,” Finra said.

Shaw previously settled with six customers between July 2019 and March 2021 for a total of $450,000—all for allegedly selling risky, unsuitably alternative GPB investments, according to his BrokerCheck report.

In the latest settlement, Finra found that because of Shaw’s recommendations of the GPB partnerships, “each customer's combined holdings of alternative investments, including in the management firm, exceeded 30% of the customer's liquid net worth.”

Shaw was a registered rep for 16 years, mostly recently with Newbridge Securities Corporate between September 2020 and May 2023.

This is not his first run-in with regulators.

He settled with Finra in Nov. 2022, when he was suspended for 45 days and paid a $5,000 civil money penalty for exercising discretion in customer accounts without their written authorization or his member firm's permissions to trade the accounts on a discretionary basis. The findings stated that “Shaw mistakenly believed he had discretionary authority for the accounts. However, the firm did not permit the use of discretion in its brokerage accounts.”

He voluntarily gave up his securities registration in May, 2023 according to his Brokercheck record.

Shaw could not be reached for comment.